North Country Food Alliance SPRING 2017 Update!
GARDENS:
Greetings friends and supporters!
It’s spring time and that means it’s gardening season. This year we’ll be continuing work on the garden we built last year in Saint Paul’s North End neighborhood while breaking ground on two brand new gardens.
In North Minneapolis we’ll be building a new garden on an empty lot we’ve acquired from the city on James Avenue North. This garden being built in partnership with our friends at Kill Kancer, the local cancer prevention charity, will be our first garden project in Minneapolis’ North Side.
Also only a few blocks away from our current garden in Saint Paul’s North End neighborhood, we’ll be breaking ground on a new project where we’ll be planting forageable perennial edibles.
We’re excited to get our hands dirty again this spring planting, weeding, and growing food. You’re welcome to come join us in the gardens too. If you would like to be notified of volunteer days at the gardens feel free to respond to this email and let us know. We’ll be planning some fun volunteer days that are family friendly where we can do meaningful work together and socialize at the same time.
FOODSHARE:
We’re excited to announce a new partnership beginning this spring with the new metro Hy-Vee stores. This new partnership is giving yet another boost to the amount of surplus produce we are redistributing to needy people in the Twin Cities every week.
Wedge Co-op & Linden Hills Co-op round-up programs:
We’re super happy to be the recipient of the round-up programs at all 3 Lakewinds Co-ops this month (April) and at the Wedge Co-op in September.
This means that for the rest of this month when you shop at any Lakewinds Food Co-op (Richfield, Chanhassen, & Minnetonka) for the rest of April you can round up your change to the nearest dollar to help support our work increasing access to healthy food. At the Wedge Co-op in Minneapolis you’ll be able to do it again during the month of September.
WHAT IS THAT SYMBOL ON THE NCFA FLYER THAT SAYS IWW?
For those of you who don’t already know, NCFA is a bit of an experiment in how we are structured as an organization. We are democratically-run by all of the workers at North Country Food Alliance. This means that nobody collects a management or administrative salary, and everyone is more invested in the success of the organization that we all run together.
In order to help protect our democratic workplace and show solidarity with workers everywhere we voluntarily joined the Industrial Workers of the World when we created NCFA almost 4 years ago. NCFA is a closed union shop that is democratically run by the workers. That IWW symbol on our flyer is the symbol of the union our workers are proud members of, the Industrial Workers of the World.
Our program coordinators are all elected by their co-workers every 6 months, but everyone at NCFA gets to share in the program labor. At the same time every worker at NCFA knocks on doors and canvasses to raise the money needed to keep our programs running. It’s very hard but rewarding work to be a part of this democratic worker-run organization.
We are hiring new people but we’re very picky. If you have experience with door-to-door canvassing in a fundraising capacity and want to try being a part of this democratic project, feel free to email your resume to info@northcountryfoodalliance.org & as always if you want to continue to support our democratically-run charity financially you can donate on our website at northcountryfoodalliance.org or to set up an automatic monthly donation feel free to call us at 612-568-4585.
Have an absolutely beautiful day,
-the workers at North Country Food Alliance